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Collection: Wide Crawl started April 2013
Awat is a monastery templeinThailand, Cambodia, or Laos. The word wat (Thai: วัด (Pronunciation), Khmer: វត្ត, sometimes rendered vat when referring to Laos) means "school".
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Strictly speaking a wat is a Buddhist sacred precinct with monks' quarters, the temple proper, an edifice housing a large image of Buddha, and a structure for lessons. A Buddhist site without a minimum of three resident monks cannot correctly be described as a wat, although the term is frequently used more loosely, even for ruins of ancient temples. (As a transitive or intransitive verb, wat means to measure, to take measurements; compare templum, from which temple derives, having the same root as template.)
In Cambodia, a wat is used to refer to all kinds of places of worship. Technically, wat generally refers to a Buddhist place of worship, but the technical term is វត្តពុទ្ធសាសនា (wat pootasasna). A Christian church can be referred as វិហារយេស៊ូ(vihear yeasu). Angkor Wat អង្គរវត្ត means city of temples.
In everyday language in Thailand, a wat is any place of worship except a mosque (Thai สุเหร่า - su-rao; or มัสยิด - Thai rendering of masjid; a mosque may also be described as โบสถ์ของอิสลาม - bot khong Is-a-lam). Thus wat cheen is a Chinese temple (either Buddhist or Taoist), wat khaek is a Hindu temple, and wat krisorwat kritorwat farang is a Christian church, though Thai โบสถ์ (โบด bot) may be used descriptively as with mosque.
According to Thai law, the Thai Buddhist temples are categorised into two types:
A typical Buddhist wat consists of the following buildings:
The living quarters of the monks, including the กุฏิ (Thai กุติ kutiorกุด kut - monk cells) are separated from the sacred buildings.
The roofs of Thai temples are often adorned with chofahs.
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Look up wat in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Some well-known wats include:
Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Wat Peapat, Battambang, Cambodia
Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Two viharns and a chedi at Wat Phra That Chang Kham, Nan, Thailand
Chedi and viharn at Wat Suan Tan, Nan, Thailand
Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok, Thailand
Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang, Laos
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